BREXIT Party leader Nigel Farage revealed dozens of new Westminster candidates today, suggesting he is anticipating a General Election to be held before the UK leaves the EU.
At an event in London attended by hundreds of Brexit Party prospective parliamentary candidates, the former Ukip leader put pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to go for a No-Deal Brexit.
Farage, who has unsuccessfully run for MP seven times, also said he would support a Johnson-led government in the House of Commons - calling such a team "unstoppable".
READ MORE: Nigel Farage's Dundee Brexit Party rally cancelled
During the speech Farage also reeled off names of various Remain-supporting parties, leaving a gap afterwards to allow the crowd of prospective candidates to boo. When he said "the Scottish nationalists" he drummed up a larger boo from the audience than when he named the LibDems, another anti-Brexit party.
Despite suggesting that the event would see "hundreds" of candidates revealed, today's announcement only saw 75 names made public. There are already 225 candidates publicly named.
READ MORE: Brexit Party ditches Moray candidate after racist blog revealed
One of the new names revealed was Scot Jim Ferguson-Hannah who will stand in the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey constituency, which voted 44.0% to Leave.
Ferguson-Hannah ran for MEP for the Brexit Party in Scotland at the European elections earlier this year.
Another publicaly named candidate for a Scottish constituency is lecturer Stuart Waiton (above), standing for Dundee West. The Leave vote in Dundee was 40.2%. Waiton was also an unsuccessful Brexit Party MEP hopeful.
Unlike Ferguson-Hannah, for whom little is known about his views, Waiton has been very public with his opinions. Waiton has called the smacking ban a "tragic, depressing bill" which underlines the "aloof, elitist nature of politics", and in a column for The Herald last year claimed Scots men are "at risk" of being branded rapists for political reasons. The article prompted a response from Rape Crisis.
Other candidates already announced for Scottish constituencies are Les Durance for Gordon, Stuart Powell for Perth and North Perthshire, Danyaal Raja for Glasgow South, Calum Walker for Dundee East and Paul Aitken for East Renfrewshire.
Today at the launch of the candidates, Farage said: "Let me be clear – if Boris Johnson was to summon up the courage to lead this country towards a clean-break Brexit on the 31st of October, and if the only means of achieving that was calling a General Election which I frankly suspect that it would be, in those circumstances if Boris Johnson is prepared to do the right thing to win our independence then we are prepared to do the right thing and we would put country before party, and we would do it every time. We’d do it every time.
"We would be prepared in those circumstances to help him, to work with him. Perhaps, I don’t know, in the form of a non-aggression pact at the election. The truth is even if Boris [above] went down that route the Conservative Party on their own have lost so much trust in this country that the only way they can do it, the only way they could win a workable majority to get this country free, is with our help and support. We will not get a genuine Brexit without the Brexit Party being involved and we are ready to play our part in the destiny of this country.
"The truth of it is the Remain side may have lots of political parties but for the Leave side a Johnson government committed to doing the right thing, and the Brexit Party working in tandem would be unstoppable, would deliver a big parliamentary majority and would get this country free."
It's thought a General Election may take place on October 17, just weeks before the UK is due to leave the EU.
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